On the Road to Hell

Eduardo Del Buey
Photography: Ap
La Jornada Maya

Tuesday, january 22th, 2019

Brazil and Venezuela are taking different routes to hell.

Brazil’s new President, Jair Bolsonaro, was elected by voters hoping for massive changes to the political system, corruption and the high crime rates.

He spent his first week in office sending out confusing signals to Brazilians, claiming at first that his government was going to raise taxes on financial transactions, only to be contradicted by his chief of staff just four hours later. Such contradictory statements do not augur well for the kind of economic management a major and sophisticated economy such as Brazil’s needs.

In another major move, he said that he would be willing to offer the United States a military base in the country as a way to offset growing Russian influence in neighboring Venezuela. Mr. Bolsonaro is an avowed enemy of Venezuela and has taken every opportunity to attack the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

The trouble is that he made this statement without first consulting the military, an institution that has traditionally resisted any perceived encroachment upon Brazilian sovereignty. Seven of Bolsonaro’s twenty-two ministers are former military officers. Bolsonaro, a former military officer himself may well have gotten ahead of himself on this issue. Indeed, he will need the military’s support to create the changes he seeks.

Mr. Bolsonaro has shifted management of indigenous lands from the Indigenous Affairs Agency (FONAI) that had traditionally sought to protect these lands to the Ministry of Agriculture. Among the Ministry’s targets are the “world’s lungs” (the oxygen producing Amazon jungle). The objective is to develop the Amazon rain forest rather than protect it as an environmental sanctuary. The Ministry will likely oversee the massive displacement of indigenous peoples from their traditional lands as the Bolsonaro government opens them up to massive development as he promised during his campaign. There is little doubt that there is any political space for indigenous rights in Bolsonaro’s scheme of things.

Indeed, Brazil’s right has long sought to exploit the Amazon rain forests by cutting down trees for lumber and clearing the land for the agricultural use (including grazing for livestock). Agricultural products are much in demand on world markets. As well, the mineral wealth present in these rainforests is also now ripe for extraction, with the dangerous impact that this would have on the environment, not to mention the traditional ways of life of the indigenous population.

Among President Bolsonaro’s first international moves was to withdraw Brazil from the Paris Accord on Climate Change and the recently negotiated Global Compact on Migration. Millions of Venezuelans have fled the Maduro regime and hundreds of thousands have sought asylum in Brazil. While Mr. Bolsonaro hates the Maduro regime, it remains to be seen if Brazil’s withdrawal from the Global Compact will have an impact on the flow of Venezuelan refugees.

Finally, he has wasted little time in bringing to bear his policies against indigenous peoples, gays, environmentalists and opposition liberal and socialist politicians thus fanning the flames of hatred and division.

It would be fair to conclude that President Bolsonaro's first week was marked by moves aimed at appealing to his socially conservative base made up of evangelical Christian, pro-gun and pro-business groups, but with little underlying strategy. "You get the idea that the government has been taken over by people who don't have an idea what Brazil's most serious problems are, who are tackling issues most of which aren't important. When they do take on important issues, they have very simplified answers”, political analyst at the University of Sao Paulo Maria Herminia Tavares de Almeida said to AFP.

If Brazil appears on its way to hell, Venezuela has been there for a few years and is sending post cards.

It is now twenty years since Hugo Chavez came to power. Prior to his election, Venezuela was a wealthy country, although with an unequal and unsustainable distribution of wealth and a corrupt political class.

Today, Venezuela is a societal basket case with millions fleeing to neighboring countries to escape the economic catastrophe currently plaguing the nation.

President Maduro took the oath of office in early January despite last May’s highly controversial presidential election. Indeed, the Organization of American States declared that his new government is illegal and a good number of hemispheric states will not recognize him as the legitimate president. There is also a growing sentiment that the leader of the elected national assembly, dismissed illegally by the Maduro government in 2015, may well be the legal head of state and government, according to the constitution.

This constitutional crisis is such that the President of the legitimate Congress dismissed by Maduro in 2015, Mr. Juan Guaido, who has yet to assert his claim to the presidency, was briefly arrested by security forces while on his way to a citizens’ meeting in the port of La Guaira on January 13th. He was later released, but this underscores the high levels of tension in the country.

Agence France Press reported on January 14th that “Guaido said he was willing to become interim leader when speaking to an energized crowd blocking a busy Caracas street a day after Maduro's inauguration. But he said he would need support from the public, the armed forces and the international community before trying to form a transitional government to hold new elections to replace Maduro. The head of the Organization of American States, Secretary-General Luis Almagro, responded quickly, sending out a tweet recognizing Guaido as Venezuela's interim president”.

The report went on to note that U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton then praised Mr. Guaido, although he didn't echo Almagro's step of calling him the interim president. Mr. Bolton reiterated the US position that the May election was "not free, fair or credible" and said "we support the courageous decision" of Guaido's declaration "that Maduro does not legitimately hold the country's presidency".

Finally, on Wednesday January 16th, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted "We congratulate, recognize and support the courage of Venezuela's (legitimate) National Assembly to formally declare Maduro 'usurper' of democracy and to transfer executive responsibilities to the National Assembly".

On January 15th the so-called Lima Group, to which Canada and thirteen other hemispheric countries belong, also voiced their support for Guaido and the legitimate Congress. The only exception was Mexico, that decided not to join in the criticism of the Maduro regime.

So, in summary, Latin America’s formerly richest country is falling apart while democracy is under threat in the country with its largest economy and population.

The further polarization of the hemisphere is not welcome news for those of us who know the region and who understand the need to replace corruption and impunity with higher values of governing that serve the needs of citizens.

As Brazil shifts politically to the right, one might ask how the authoritarian leftist Venezuela-Cuba-Bolivia-Nicaragua axis will respond and whether other Latin American states with right of center governments will welcome Mr. Bolsonaro to their fold, or instead, will they reject his authoritarian methods and politics of division?

These are good questions for which there are no immediate answers.

Indeed, one may also question whether authoritarian populism a viable option for a region that has suffered from poor governance and political strongmen so often.

A Latinobarometro poll issued on November 18, 2018, reported that the percentage of Latin Americans disillusioned with democracy had jumped from 51 per cent in 2009 to 72 per cent while the share that is content with democracy shrunk from 44 per cent to 24 per cent during the same period; the lowest level since polling began two decades ago.

One must also keep in mind that Bolsonaro and Chavez (in his first election) (not to mention Morales in Bolivia, and Ortega in Nicaragua) were all elected democratically by voters who had strong indications about the authoritarian nature of these leaders.

This would appear to validate Latinobarometro’s findings about the disillusionment of many Latin Americans about the efficacy of democracy – when voters elect authoritarian populists to dismantle already weak democratic institutions.

But, is it fair to ask if any Latin American country has ever been a true democracy, with an equitable distribution of wealth, full respect for human rights, strong democratic institutions, and lack of racism when it comes to people of color or indigenous populations?

[b]Probably not[/b]

And, absent any change, Latin Americans will continue to be robbed of the kind of political and economic development needed to achieve their full potential. But for it to be legitimate, change must come from within.

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